


Mortal Desires

by Ramenlover



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AUish, Gen, Post CoHF (ish)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-06 17:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1865988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramenlover/pseuds/Ramenlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Passive-aggressive one-up-man-ship between children and their estranged parents is not at all uncommon. However, when your father is Asmodeus, a prince of hell, these kind of contests can have odd and sometimes dangerous consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Phone Call

**Author's Note:**

> I am perfectly happy living in denial about Raphael's demise through fics like this, thank you very much.  
> If you have any corrections/criticism, please comment!  
> Thank you!

“Who’s your best friend?” Clary asked. “Your best friend in the whole world?”

“Really?” Simon chuckled. “I should have known. Hang on.” Hands shaking, Clary forced herself to keep the phone to her ear. She wanted to throw it, wanted to end the conversation quickly before it tore her breaking heart in two. “Hey!” she heard Simon yell. “Santiago! This one’s for you!”

Shock sent ice running through her veins. Santiago… that wasn’t possible. There was no way that was possible. He was _dead_. Sebastian and Magnus had said as much, Simon had _felt_ it. So how…

“Hello?” a familiar voice echoed down the phone.

Dry mouthed she took several moments to reply. “Raphael?” she whispered.

“That’s me,” the sardonic voice confirmed. There was a slight twinge of good humour in his words that she wasn’t used to hearing. “Can I help you?”

“Raphael,” she said again, brain struggling to fit the pieces together. “I-” Closing her eyes she shook her head. She needed to sort this out. Despite the feeling hopelessness thundering through her head, despite the pressing desire to curl up into a quivering ball, she needed to find out what was going on. “How old are you?” she whispered.

“Mm?” Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “I’m seventeen… same as this _baboso_.”

Distantly, she could hear Simon complain, “Speaking in Spanish doesn’t hide insults!”

“ _Dios_ ,” Raphael muttered under his breath. That in itself was extremely familiar. It felt strange. The whole thing felt strange. “Any other odd questions?”

“What year were you born?” she demanded, sitting up straighter, face fixing into a firm frown.

“1990,” he said. “Seventeen years ago… which is why I am seventeen. Who is this?”

“I’ve got one more question,” she said, not answering. “Have… Have you ever heard of-” For a second she paused. She wanted to say Hotel Dumont. But that sent horrifying images into her head of the two dreadfully human and vulnerable boys wandering into a nest full of brutal vampires. Vampires who probably had more than enough reason to hate them. “Have you ever heard of Magnus Bane?”

“Magnus Bane?” There wasn’t a hint of recognition in his tone. “No… can’t say I ha- Ow! Ow! Lewis!” There was a crash and groans that morphed into laughter. Simon’s painfully familiar laughter and the odd genuine chuckles that Raphael had never uttered when she had known him. “ _Felicidades_ , Simon. I think you broke the phone.”

“It’s your fault,” Simon countered. “I wanted nothing more than to listen in on my little Raphy getting a girlfriend at last! I feel so proud yet nostalgic. My child is growing up so fast!”

“Don’t worry, mother dearest,” Raphael teased. “You’re invited to the wedding.”

They sounded happy. Naturally, genuinely happy. As though they had been friends all their life. As though Raphael was _her_. As though everywhere she had been in Simon’s life, every hole in his memory, had been filled by Raphael. Nausea rose in her stomach and her breath caught. It was as though she were drowning, floundering, lost at sea without a single soul to find her.

“Sorry,” Raphael was speaking to her again. “My friend is an idiot. Was that ever-” She hung up.


	2. Sighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I would apologise for the long wait but I have stuff to do!  
> Like exams and exams and school and exams

He didn’t believe her. Well, he did and he didn’t. All Magnus knew was that he’d been pacing the room for half an hour wondering how he was supposed to tell the aged Guadalupe that her son was dead when Clary had come bursting through his door with Alec and Isabel on her heels yelling about phone calls.

When she’d finally calmed down enough to speak to him with any coherence, he found himself even more baffled by what she had to say. For a long moment he just stared at her. Then he turned to Alec and asked, “Is this true?”

“You think she’s lying?” Isabel demanded, rather more affronted than probably reasonable.

“I think she just lost her best friend after a very harrowing experience,” Magnus said ignoring the venom that was being glared at him by the girls and returning his attention to Alec. “Well?”

Those blue eyes were steady and sure. “When Clary told us, we went to the school as soon as possible. They were there together. And very human.”

Human… Sitting heavily, Magnus looked down at his hands. If only the old Raphael could hear this… That he was alive again, that he had a soul again. Or perhaps that he’d never lost it after all. He would probably have insulted their intelligence and laughed at them.

“How did this happen?” Clary asked, desperation overpowering her patience. “Why?!”

“My father I presume,” Magnus said slowly. It made sense… Everything put into perspective. “Probably for a number of reasons. Firstly in the practical sense that Raphael blocks up any gaps in Simon’s memory that could have been exploited. Stops anything coming back by accident. Secondly… It was probably also an immature ‘Look I can actually save the boy you were tasked to rescue. Beat that’ thing. He saw a chance and took it.” A bitter scowl worked along his mouth. Just typical of demons…

“Can we summon your father again?”

Shocked for a second time in probably as many minutes, Magnus let out an odd gargled yelp. “What?! You- Why the hell would you want to do that? After what happened last time? No thank you, I have had quite enough of my father to last at least a good few centuries. Probably more.”

“But how do we reverse this?” Ah, Clary, wonder that she was, once again displaying her complete inability to see the world past her precious circle of friends.

Tilting his head, Magnus frowned slightly. “So… you want to effectively kill a seventeen year old boy in the hopes that just maybe your best friend will be dragged back into a world of demons, death and destruction?”

Silence. The full impact of what she wanted to do seemed to _finally_ dawn on her after a few seconds. “Oh…”

Isabel glanced helplessly at her brother who just shrugged. “There must be something we can do,” Alec said, sitting beside Magnus. “Anything?”

“I wish there was,” Magnus said, drawing Alec closer to him. “But… Unless Raphael can somehow be made to remember his true past, the Simon we know will be lost forever. And my father is too intelligent to leave us any obvious loopholes. I’m sorry but… there’s nothing I can do.”

He’d said that but here he was hours later with Lily stalking through the lamp lit streets like predators. They had to know. They had to be sure.

The path to Guadalupe’s house was one he’d taken many times. It had been a long while since he’d actually entered the house or spoken to any of the residents, but he liked to check in on them occasionally. Whether out of curiosity or something else, he wasn’t sure.

“What will you do if it is him?” Lily asked, pausing at a street corner to let a car pass.

Magnus shrugged. “I have no idea. Probably nothing really. Maybe construct a barrier to protect him. I’m sure he made more than a few enemies in his time as a vampire.” Lily let out a snort as if to agree. “What about you? How are you holding up without Raphael to guide you?”

“We haven’t descended into complete lunacy if that’s what you’re implying,” she said, a haughty set to her shoulders. “Raphael taught us many things and with that idiot Maureen gone, we have been able to pass on these practices to the fledglings. We won’t forget him. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You miss him?” Many people advised against teasing hungry vampires. But what was life without a little danger?

A glare was all he received in answer. How rude.

Silence for a few more streets then he caught her arm. “We’re almost there. Be careful, as far as I’ve been informed he doesn’t know anything about Downworlders or Shadowhunters.”

“Do you always underestimate people like this or is it just me?” Lily demanded.

“I underestimate the vast majority of people who aren’t myself,” Magnus said with a bright smile. She rolled her eyes and tugged her arm out of his grip. Such charming creatures vampires were.

At this time of night, in an area like this, it was unusual for anyone to be out. So they almost immediately noticed the teenagers on the street opposite. But it wasn’t until they heard a loud voice declare, “I’d rather get brain cancer!” that they acknowledged them.

And there they was. Leaning against the wall with Simon’s group of friends, Magnus had never bothered learning their names. Both were older, obviously. Their hair had grown longer, their bodies taller. While Simon remained more or less the same, perhaps a little more filled out, Raphael was almost unrecognisable. The planes of that angelic baby face of his had hardened and matured into something else entirely. He was definitely human. Without a single doubt. The warmth in his skin was obvious even from this distance and despite still retaining his good looks he definitely seemed less perfect. Like a stature cut from wood instead of marble. Something organic and rich. Something changeable.

“Our music isn’t that bad,” one of the friends argued.

“Matt, it would probably _give_ me brain cancer,” Raphael said. But he was grinning and the statement was met with laughs. A joking Raphael? Or more accurately a joking Raphael saying amusing things that didn’t involve insulting Magnus? Now that was one for the history books.

Lily was moving. “What are you doing?” Magnus hissed.

She ignored him and headed determinedly towards the group. With a muttered curse, Magnus hurried after her. The boys stopped speaking at their approach. They glanced curiously from Lily to Magnus and back again. Not surprisingly really. Magnus was a gloriously distinctive figure and Lily was… well a vampire. Being pretty and eye catching sort of went with the job.

“Hi! Sorry,” she said, faking a British accent that made Magnus’s ears want to claw their way back inside his brain. “Um, my boyfriend got us lost.”

Magnus let out an affronted noise that was cut off by her stamping on his foot. If it wasn’t for his gorgeous but practical reinforced boots he’d be suffering from broken toes. There’d be bruises at the very least. He could feel them forming already.

“We’re looking for Hotel Durmont,” she continued, keeping her eyes fixed on Raphael. Searching his face for a single hint of recognition. For _anything_.

The boys all immediately looked to Raphael. “You live here,” Simon said pointedly, glancing at Magnus every so often.

“It’s two blocks in that direction,” Raphael said, jabbing a finger over Magnus’s head “But it’s been closed down forever. You won’t find anything there.”

“I told you those guide books were out of date,” Magnus said wrapping a tight arm around Lily’s shoulders. “ _Honey_.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have bought them then, _sugar_ ,” she snapped back, accent slipping slightly in her annoyance. Raphael frowned glancing at Simon who shrugged. Observant as ever.

Time to leave. “We’d best be off then,” Magnus said. “Thanks so much for the help!” He gave a cheery wave to the bemused boys while all but frog marching Lily away from them.

“He didn’t recognise me,” Lily whispered. “Nothing… I looked at him and…”

“You should have been prepared for that,” Magnus said. But he felt a little sympathy for her. Perhaps just a twinge. Still more than he’d like to admit. Especially as he shared a little of her feelings. It was just so… surreal. In their mixed up world they’d all been forced to accept strange things readily. But this… It was too different. Too strange.

The Raphael he’d just seen was a world away from anything he’d ever known. Nothing like the traumatised suicidal child he’d saved in Dumont all those years ago. Or the sarcastic, irritable roommate he had temporarily been. Not the sophisticated, responsible leader who had brought order to the chaotic vampire clan of New York. Not the quiet boy who’d sat motionless in the wrecked remains of Ragnor Fell’s hut beside Magnus and Caterina as they mourned their friend. Nothing like the vampire boy who’d sacrificed his life for Magnus. The boy so convinced of his own damnation that he cared more about an oath on his mother’s name than his own safety.

“So what now?” Magnus asked.

Lily folded her arms. “It doesn’t matter. Raphael is still dead. That… human just shares his face. I will have a few of my people keep an eye on him but other than that I want nothing more to do with him.” With that she was gone.

It was time to hit the books on those protection spells. And soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if Guadalupe is actually still alive in the books. I'm just assuming she is because I really like her.


	3. Visit

One of the things Alec had learned rather quickly after beginning his relationship with Magnus Bane was that waking up to an empty bed was not in any way surprising. Magnus’s brain was a constant storm of theories and ideas. Every puzzle sat in that blaze of creativity, turned over and over almost unconsciously, until a solution presented itself. This could be any time. While Magnus was sitting at his desk working, while he was eating, while he was showering, sleeping or… other things.

So when Alec woke to abandoned sheets, he wasn’t surprised to see the lanky warlock curled over the desk. Hair a bird’s nest of dark spikes and left over glitter, Magnus muttered to himself as his pen scratched across paper.

“Is that the protection spell for Simon?” Alec asked, drawing a sheet around himself and rising to his feet.

“Hmm?” Magnus half-glanced towards him. “No… I’ve got that mostly sorted. _This_ is something else.”

Alec rested his arms on Magnus’s shoulders and leaned over to read the scrawlings. “Memory restoral? I thought you told Clary it was impossible.”

“I never _said_ that,” Magnus corrected. “I strongly implied it so that she could prioritise. She has enough to deal with at the moment without half-formed possibilities to torture her.”

Nodding, Alec pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “Do you wanna talk about it? Jace likes bouncing ideas off me when he’s coming up with a plan.”

“I assure I have mental capabilities that _far_ extend beyond Jace’s mortal brain.” A smile and a pause. Then; “The problem is Raphael!” Magnus snapped, slapping the pen down onto the desk. “Him and the way my father’s spell works. Imagine for a moment that the memory is a wall. Every memory is a brick. With Simon, it’s like he’s just pushed the shadow world related memory bricks out of the wall into the unconscious behind it. There, they’ll eventually dissipate on their own. The holes, which we may have been able to exploit had fake memories merely been stretched across, have been sealed up with Raphael. It’s impossible to work around, unless perhaps we managed to get Raphael himself to help unpick the spell. It would be difficult and take a long time but it just might be possible.” Magnus’s face darkened as he turned to some of his other notes. “That brings us onto the second problem of my father’s spell. Obviously, he can’t use the same method for Raphael as he did Simon. Raphael’s memories are far more extensive and most of them have no place belonging in the head of a seventeen year-old boy living in the twenty first century.”

“He’d remember stuff like the second world war,” Alec said. “And the birth of the cell phone.”

“So my father has had to create a completely new set of memories. If we reuse the wall analogy, he’s built a whole new wall in front of the original wall. But this new wall is made up of fake memories, the bricks can’t hold themselves up so they’re leaning against the original wall for support.” Still there was that unhappy set to his mouth and Alec knew that there was more. “That in itself wouldn’t be a problem except, Raphael’s memories, his whole _mind_ , is fragile. It’s filled with blocked memories and on top of that death, real death, takes its toll on the mind, on the _soul_. The metaphorical wall of Raphael’s original memories is a crumbling, decrepit mess. It can’t take the strain. Before too long, it’ll crumble completely.”

Alec’s eyes widened and he bit his lip. “Shouldn’t your father have predicted this?”

“Of course he did,” Magnus said bitterly. “But what does he care if one human boy is driven into insanity? Which will happen if this continues. With Raphael ‘gone’, it will be completely impossible to restore either of their memories.”

*

“So what _exactly_ are we looking for?” Jace demanded, peering up at the house with something of an imperiously inquisitive air. It was certainly more rundown than anything he’d ever stayed in yet held a strange rustic charm he couldn’t quite pin down. He thought perhaps the term might be ‘Homely’ or maybe just ‘Lived in’. Yes, that might work. This was a very lived in house. It was evident in every contour, every facet. A world away from those grand Shadowhunter family mansions in Idris, with their scrupulous standards despite the generations of children who lived within their walls. Even further from the Institute, built to serve as more of a hotel or training facility than a home.

The house was where Raphael now lived. After much wheedling, Magnus had persuaded Catarina to lift the address from Raphael’s magically updated medical records in the hospital’s system. According to her, he was now the grandson of his own little brother which made even Jace’s twisted family tree feel normal.

“We need to find out as much as we can about Raphael’s new memories,” Alec said. “Magnus think there might be a clue.”

“I’ll definitely look for journals,” Jace said. “’ _The super-secret, super-hidden, super-private diary of Raphael Santiago aged 4_ ’ will probably be a title to keep an eye out for.” He grinned as Alec rolled his eyes and scrawled a soundless rune onto his parabatai’s neck. Still smiling at the thought of breaking and entering, Jace returned the favour and the pair sought entry through the disappointingly unlocked back door.

The ‘lived in’-ness of the house increased tremendously once inside. There were children’s drawings on the wall (not all of them bound to paper), certificates and awards. Post-it note reminders and messages to each other crowded the fridge amid souvenir magnets. Jumbles of shoes were heaped up beside the backdoor and a stack of lunchboxes sat next to the drying dishes of that night’s meal.

Weaving around children’s toys, Jace stepped into the hall and peered into the living room. A brown skinned woman was glancing anxiously at a mantle clock while a man who bore a strong resemblance to Raphael glared at the television. So that must be Raphael’s nephew-turned-father… he certainly had the same piercing gaze.

Alec poked Jace’s shoulder and pointed up the stairs.

The second floor landing was a long series of doors. All but one of them, the bathroom, was a bedroom. In the first, two seven year old boys lay sleeping beneath bright quilts, curled around soft toys and dreaming peacefully. They both had Raphael’s curly locks, perhaps their sweet faces would one day bear the same mocking cynicism that seemed to run through this family’s blood.

The second bedroom was empty and quite obviously for the parents. The third held a teenage girl frowning over homework of some kind. Ignoring Alec’s expression, Jace sneaked a peek over her shoulder. Math. Ew.

The fourth room held a boy and a girl who were furiously competing on some racing video game. Neither Jace nor Alec had any idea what it was but they were pretty sure that the console their remotes were plugged into counted as ‘old’.

The fifth room was also vacant but Jace paused beside the desk and beckoned to Alec. There was a pile of comics balanced precariously a top of crumpled sweater. The label was sticking out and the words ‘Simon Lewis’ scribbled on it in biro were just about visible.

So this must be Raphael’s room… More of Simon’s things were scattered about the room amid Raphael’s own. School books, clothes (probably, he certainly couldn’t imagine Raphael wearing them), games and comics. They seemed to meld seamlessly with Raphael’s room giving the impression that it was the home to two boys instead of one. Raphael’s clothes were kept in slightly neater order. Hung up on hooks or over the back of chairs. The bookcase had long since overflowed and now everything seemed to be kept in messy stacks around the walls.

For a moment, Jace wondered if Simon and Clary had casually left things at each other’s houses in the past. How much of Simon’s stuff had been destroyed when Clary’s home had been ransacked?

The slamming off a door downstairs snapped Jace out of his thoughts. Alec, who was checking under the mattress, frowned and glanced towards him.

Shouting from downstairs. Furious Spanish mixed with the occasional jab of English. Then pounding footsteps and Raphael stormed into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

For a second, he just stood there, bag slung over one shoulder, face thunderous, jaw clenching. Then with a wordless yell of rage, he flung his bag across the room, causing several mini avalanches onto the floor, and threw himself down onto the bed. Alec darted back just in time looking panicked.

They’d predicted that Raphael might be there, but they’d assumed that he’d be engrossed in some activity, or at least be with Simon, so that he’d be suitably distracted and not notice his possessions moving themselves about.

Ah well, they couldn’t exactly back out now. At least Raphael was sulking now, so he might be too busy with that to pay attention to them. Seeming to come to the same conclusion, Alec took advantage of the collapsed piles to the scan the titles of the now exposed books. Meanwhile, Jace returned his attention to the desk. It was fairly obvious that there were no wonderfully descriptive accounts of Raphael’s early life hidden amongst the comics, pens and schoolwork that cluttered the desktop. The drawers on the other hand, now they might hide some interesting treasures.

There came the sound of a smashing downstairs and more shouting. A marital dispute?

“ _Dios_ … _Parar_!” For a second Jace thought the hissed Spanish was at him. Then he saw that Raphael had his hands clamped over his eyes, fingers digging into his skin and teeth gritted. He was trying desperately not to cry.

Even here, when he should have considered himself alone and in private.

Jace used his distraction to flick through his drawers. Nothing. Then he got down on his hands and knees and peered under the desk. A mysterious old shoe box. Promising.

Easing it out, he lifted the lid to see, much to his delight, an old notebook. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket where it would be concealed by his glamour, and then waved to Alec’s attention. He gave a thumbs up and began to make his way towards the door.

“Hey, Simon,” came the voice from the bed and they glanced over to see that Raphael had issued a cell phone from his pocket at some point. “Do you mind if I stay over yours? Mom and dad are at it again.” A pause and then he smiled. A real, proper smile. Like a wave of calm and happiness that washed over his face, drowning out all of his worries. He hung up quickly, shoved a few things into a duffle bag and then snuck out through his bedroom window. Seeing no reason to risk getting hit by a stray plate, Jace led the way through after him.

Perhaps they could do a bit of recon as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the Spanish, I was using google translate. It will probably get worse from here on out


End file.
